SQL Server 2025 Cursors: Module Review
Objective: Apply the cursor lifecycle and select a justified processing strategy.
You can now read and write a complete Transact-SQL cursor workflow, explain its scope, and distinguish fetching from cleanup. The first design question remains whether the work requires procedural iteration at all.
The five statements
| Statement | Responsibility |
|---|---|
| DECLARE | Define the query, scope, and cursor options. |
| OPEN | Execute the cursor query and prepare fetching. |
| FETCH | Retrieve a row; check status before processing it. |
| CLOSE | Release the current result while retaining the cursor for possible reopening. |
| DEALLOCATE | Remove a reference; the final reference releases cursor structures. |
Review before publishing cursor code
- Try a set-based formulation first.
- State the required order and select explicit columns.
- Specify LOCAL unless connection-wide scope is intentional.
- Choose scrolling, read-only behavior, and change visibility independently.
- Match FETCH INTO variables to the selected columns.
- Check @@FETCH_STATUS before processing each row.
- Handle cleanup on failure as well as success.
- Define transaction ownership separately from cursor cleanup.
- Measure behavior with representative data and concurrency.
Terms to retain
- Result set
- The rows returned by a query.
- Scope
- Where a cursor name is visible.
- Membership
- The rows included in the cursor result.
- Scrolling
- Navigation beyond a forward-only NEXT sequence.
- Cursor reference
- A name or variable that identifies an allocated cursor.
Check your understanding
A read-only cursor can scroll if configured to do so. A global cursor belongs to one connection, not every user. A failed fetch must not process the previous row's variables. CLOSE and DEALLOCATE are neither COMMIT nor ROLLBACK.
Complete the module self-check and revisit the practice exercise. The answer pages explain the reasoning; they do not award course credit or submit work to a tutor.
Continue learning
Use the course navigation to revisit set-based queries, subqueries, and data modification. This module does not assume that a new Module 7 has already been published.